BAGHDAD — When a friend from the old neighborhood rang Abu Ali after sunrise one day this month to tell him that his house had been destroyed, the middle-aged Sunni confessed to himself that he felt happy.
He turned to his wife in bed and told her that the Americans had flattened their home in the Washash neighborhood and killed some of the Shiite militia members who had kicked them out last September.
They were people he had lived next to for years, people he had said hello to every day.
People who had killed his teenage son three months ago, leaving him with a bullet hole in his eye and forehead.
"God took our revenge for us," his wife, a Shiite, answered.
He thought about the friend who had called him with the news. His name was Sattar, and like the men who killed his son, he was a member of Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
He replayed their conversation in his head.
"These are the same men who stole my house and killed my son," Abu Ali, who didn't want his formal name used, had blurted into the receiver.
His friend fired back: "What about the women and children who were there?"
"This is God's will," he answered. "They deserved what happened."
The two said goodbye. It was normal for them to talk, and Sattar would call back later with more information about the damage.
The two men had been friends for 10 years, and they were friends still, despite Sattar's alliance with the locals who had forced Abu Ali from his home. Sattar remained loyal because Abu Ali had stood up for him when Sattar's own brothers tried to cheat their sibling out of money. Still, Abu Ali thought that his old friend was easily frightened and would never help him in times of danger.
Their friendship shows the very intimate nature of the war in Iraq -- a war in which your enemies are often people you've known much of your life; in which your neighbors are often behind the crimes committed against you; in which every slight, every misdeed, every injustice is recorded and the desire for vengeance runs deep.
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Segregation spreads
As U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and President Bush laud the success of the Baghdad security plan and hail the start of a return to normality, the Iraqi capital is awash with at least 171,000 displaced people, including Abu Ali. Many Sunnis and Shiites have retreated to virtually segregated districts sealed off by blast walls and razor wire to protect themselves from their rival religious sect.
